Jewish Studies Commons^™

Jewish Presence In The Venetian Empire: A Challenge To Venetian Mythology, Avery Rosensweig

Honors Theses

This paper attempts to explain the significance of Jewish presence in the Venetian Empire in the context of the myth of Venice. Jews were officially permitted to settle in Venice in 1516, but their connection with the Venetian Empire goes further back. Jews were important for the success of the Venetian Empire, particularly from the sixteenth century onward. The permanent settlement of the Jews in Venice directly impacted the very ideology of the Venetian Empire.

Although the phrase "myth of Venice" was developed by twentieth-century historians, Venetians perpetuated the myth and wove its ideals into the foundation of the Venetian …

Nebraska Stories Of Humanity: Increasing Accessibility To Holocaust Education, Aila Ganic

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to answer the question: How can the digital humanities provide a vehicle that elevates the human impact of survivor narrative and testimony? An analyzation of how the digital humanities could preserve survivor testimony is conducted through an examination of how Bea Karp’s narrative will be shared through the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal project. Based on this analyzation, the Nebraska Stories of Humanity portal could be an effective method for teaching Holocaust education for three main reasons. First, this portal project avoids perpetrator-oriented narratives by highlighting survivors and soldiers who liberated camps. Further, it also offers a …

Ethnicity And Education: College Attendance Patterns Among Early 20th-Century Maine's Immigrant Community, Jacob M. Nash

Honors Theses

I examine the college attendance patterns of second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants in Maine in the early 20^th century relative to other ethnic groups using individual-level Census records. I employ the Abramitzky, Boustan, and Eriksson (ABE) algorithm to track second-generation Jewish, Italian, French Canadian, English Canadian and European immigrants from the 1910 Census to the 1940 Census. My logistic regression analysis indicates that second-generation Jewish immigrants in Maine attended college at significantly higher rates than their peers of similar background in every other ethnic group. While I cannot evaluate them, I also discuss potential explanations for the disparity in college attendance …

The Residential Location Choices Of Chabad Households: An Analysis Of Decision Making With Non-Price Constraints, Chasity A. Mcfadden

Honors Theses

Where an individual chooses to live informs many of their economic decisions and may be the single largest economic decision one makes in their lives. Through understanding the way that people choose their residential locations, we are able to better understand the opportunities available to them. Within the Chabad community, there is a large focus on emissary work, which calls Chabad Jews to move outside of large Jewish communities in order to help secular Jews become more religious. There are also certain religious amenities that are necessary to live a Chabad life, such as a local synagogue. So the question …

On Writing And Righting History: The Stakes Of Holocaust Interpretation And Remembrance In Poland And The United States, Noa Gutow-Ellis

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the ways in which American Jews - and Americans more generally, by way of the Americanization of the Holocaust - have come to think about and understand Poland and how Poland has subsequently rejected their narratives. Historically, American Jewish cultural works have placed Poland as a geographic space, nation, and people at the center of stories of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and World War II. In its quest to right and correct historical misunderstandings, this project looks at the ways Poland has worked to completely revise the historical narrative.

Through tracing historiographies of separateness between Jewish …

Mobilizing Jewishness, Gabriella Foster

Honors Theses

As a dance practitioner and self-identified Jew, I am deeply committed to social action through performance. Over the course of the past year, I explored the capacity of contemporary dance practices to support Jews in reflecting on and conceptualizing their Jewish experience. Through literary and creative research, the designing and facilitating of movement workshops in mid-Maine Jewish communities, and the creation of an evening-length performance piece titled, Shelanu (Ours), I discovered the numerous ways in which these two aspects of my identity could enrich one another. In the wake of several anti-Semitic incidents both nationally and locally this year, this …

What The Walls Say: Finding Meaning And Value In Tel Aviv’S Street Art, Rachel R. Bird

Honors Theses

This thesis explores street art in Tel Aviv, Israel through anthropological concepts of value. By defining street art as an interstitial practice—one that exists between permeable, socially defined boundaries and is characterized differently by different power structures—I attempt to define some of the different regimes of value that apply to street art. Using the emerging market of “street art tours” as a fieldwork site, I look at how street art is presented and re-presented to both tourists and locals. By situating my research in a historical and geographic context, I hope to understand the ways different value schema, from economic …

Contemporary Jewish Female Artists: Critiquing Challenging And Dismantling The Patriarchal Construction Of Judaism, Cosette Shachnow

Honors Theses

The unfaltering Jewish legal system defined by the Torah (the ancient biblical text) articulates laws describing the manner in which worshippers should live and behave. Despite pivotal historical events affecting the Jewish community these laws have not changed with the passage of time. Many Jews interpret and incorporate some, or all, of teachings and laws into their daily lives. This thesis investigates art that reflects on the contemporary Jewish-American experience and identity as parallel to the second and third wave feminist movements. This thesis aims to reveal the manner in which contemporary female Jewish artists, specifically Hèlene Aylon, Yona Verwer, …

Jewish Women In The Ghettos, Concentration Camps, And Partisans During The Holocaust, Sara Vicks

Honors Theses

Men like, Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl, and Elie Wiesel, have provided us with valuable insight on the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Only until recently, was there a disproportion of female memoirs of the Holocaust beyond the story Anne Frank. The purpose of this study was to research the Jewish women’s experience in the ghettos, the concentration camps, and the partisans to add to a broader understanding of the Holocaust and its female victims. The hostile environment for Jewish males after Hitler’s rise to power led to a complete role reversal for Jewish men and women. Jewish …

A House Divided: The Development Of The Ideological Divide Of American Jewry And Its Influence On The American Response To Nazi Germany 1933-1943, Daniel Gross

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the response from the different American Jewish groups during Hitler’s rise to power and the subsequent Holocaust, and how the ideological divide that formed between Zionists and non-Zionists ultimately shaped the ultimately limited their ability to exert political influence toward policies to aid European Jewry. The main groups that were analyzed were the American Jewish Committee, the Joint Distribution Committee, B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the Zionist Organization of America. For purposes of analysis and clarity, the groups can be divided along the lines of extreme Zionist, which included the two …

Motivations And Consequences Of Jewish Participation In Social Movements In Argentina, Jaclyn B. Aruch

Honors Theses

The Jews of Buenos Aires form the second largest community of Jews outside of the US and Israel. Because the Argentine Jewish community has become increasingly secular over the past century, their activism pertains to economic, political, and social issues, rather than to religion. Importantly, conflicts of interest between Jews and the traditions of the Argentine society and government have helped the country demarcate its own values and the values of the Jewish community. This thesis considers the Jewish community of Argentina, specifically within Buenos Aires from 1890 to the Present. It examines Jewish involvement in social movements and the …

A Lost Land: The Jewish Experience In The Catskills, Briana H. Mark

Honors Theses

By the early twentieth century, the fruitful farmlands of Sullivan and Ulster Counties became home to hundreds of hotels and bungalow colonies that served the Jews of New York City. Yet these hotels were unlike most in America, for they not only represented an escape from the confines of the ghetto of the Lower East Side, but they also retained a distinct religious nature. The Jewish dietary laws were followed in most of the colonies and resorts, and religious services were also a part of daily life. It was within this cultural context that a summer haven was created in …

The Holocaust, Gulag, And Sociology: Why Is There Less Scholarly Interest In The Soviet Repressive System?, Rachel Schroeder

Honors Theses

The Soviet Gulag and the Holocaust are two formative events that claimed millions of victims in the twentieth century; however, the Gulag has received markedly less interest from scholars. Why does such a major discrepancy exist in the amount of attention that is focused on the Gulag as compared to the Holocaust? This paper offers a response to the above question. It explores the scale and dimensions of the discrepancy through a comparative analysis of a Gulag bibliography and a Holocaust bibliography. The paper also offers a response to the question of why the discrepancy exists by inquiring into the …

American Holocaust Films: A Case Study In Jewish American Identity (1937-1993), Jeff Daniels

Honors Theses

When examining the image of the Jew in American Holocaust films, one is truly determining how American Jews view themselves. These films' presentation of Jews exposes not only how Jewish Americans wished to see themselves but also how much Gentile Americans wanted to see of Jewish culture. An exploration of America's Holocaust films from the late 1930s to the early 1990s reveals an increasing concentration of Jews as the main victims of the event. The degree to which this specificity is emphasized exhibits how much the American public accepted Jews and their plight. At the same time, the prevalence of …